Smith v. Schweiker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 6 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Exhaustion, moreover, would frame the issue in a much clearer fashion than is possible when it is posed as an abstraction. While the legal issue raised by plaintiffs may seem well-defined to them, it seems rather unformulated to us. What'is meant by evidence of medical improvement, for example, is somewhat ambiguous. If disability status has been previously determined on the grounds of paralysis from the neck down, a video tape of the claimant playing football might well seem sufficient evidence to terminate benefits. Yet plaintiffs seem at times to be arguing that unless the claimant’s health has improved, i.e. the paralysis has disappeared rather than having been initially misdiagnosed, a termination of benefits is unlawful however conclusive the evidence of no present disability. At other times they seem to require medical testimony as essential to termination. It is also not clear why, if the initial disability determination was based on a finding of a lack of suitable jobs in the economy, evidence of a medical improvement is necessary where a different finding as to the availability of such jobs based on new evidence is made. We note this, not to comment on the merits, but to suggest that the claim raised by plaintiffs may seem far stronger, and certainly more clearly framed, when urged in the context of a concrete case, developed in the reviewing process, with a factual record setting out the reasons for the prior ruling and subsequent termination, than when posed in t”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 573 F. Supp. 1573 - Graham v. Heckler · 592 F. Supp. 1198 - Hill v. Heckler

2. ““A waiver of the exhaustion requirement may be inferred where the plaintiffs’ legal claims are collateral to their demand for benefits, where exhaustion would be a pro forma or futile gesture, or where the harm suffered in the interim would be irreparable in the sense that no post hoc relief would be adequate.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schisler v. Heckler · 578 F. Supp. 1109 - City of New York v. Heckler

3. “At issue in Jones was the Secretary’s continued adherence to a legal standard which had been repeatedly rejected by the Appeals Council. Claimants faced by a routine denial by the Secretary were thus forced to take claims to the Appeals Council which in turn would routinely reverse. Under these circumstances, concededly “needy” individuals for whom “time is a precious commodity” might obtain the higher level of benefits only by prosecuting their claims three rungs up the administrative ladder to the Appeals Council. Id. at 20. While they were ultimately successful, that very success prevented them from obtaining judicial review of the standard initially applied by the Secretary. Thus, the harm suffered, “the evasion of review,” and “the at least colorable constitutional violations of due process and equal protection,” id. at 21, persuaded the court to “assimilate the posture of the claimant Jones ... to the posture of the claimant Eldridge,” id. Unlike Jones, there is no internal disarray within the Social Security Administration in the present case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 568 F. Supp. 235 - Rivera v. Heckler